a blog about faith, hope, and mostly love

da’ noise has been broughten

I recently had a conversation with a friend about communication. Yes, there is irony in this. We were talking about the fact that (1) she didn’t realize I lived in Virginia and (2) she was mad that I didn’t realize she got a divorce. On both accounts it was mostly due to the facts that (1) we are both busy and (2) we don’t actually ever read each other’s facebook page.

The funny part of this is that I admitted it first and thought it was going to sound incredibly mean. But then I started it by saying, “I have to admit something, and this doesn’t mean I don’t care about you…”

And it turned out ok because she also had to admit the same thing. But then I started thinking, well, when it comes down to it, if you don’t read everything little thing posted by your friends on Facebook… does that mean you don’t care?

“Pshaw!” you say. “Of course not.”

But then I say, “Well doesn’t caring imply that you want to know what that person is up to and what’s important to them?”

And you say, “Well, yes, Robin, but that doesn’t mean I pay attention to everything because some stuff on FB I don’t care about and it’s just… well… noise. Static. Nonsense. But I do pop by The Wall of those I am curious about or want to stalk… errrr learn more about.”

And I say, “So why don’t you pick up a phone and ask them? Or do you even email them at their “regular” email address, whatever that means? Or are your interactions mostly through FB now?”

And you say, “Why are you still talking to yourself?”

But seriously, it was a curious thing to discuss what it means to communicate with people from all walks of life.

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, a good friend yelled, actually yelled loudly at me, “YOU CAN’T BE FRIENDS WITH EVERYONE!” in fact, he was pretty adamant and I believe he slammed down his bourbon on the word “everyone” for emphasis. It was one of the most dramatic moments of my life to date.

And now I am relegated to looking at photos of his infinitely adorable child whenever he gets around to posting new ones.

My point though is that we wade through a lot of internet noise and we try to decipher the things that will have some kind of meaning. And for the most part, I’d say 90% of the time, give or take, we end up just clicking LIKE and calling it a day. Not to mention that another 5% of the time we SHARE it because God forbid we come up with an original thought to post. If you try that all the time, you end up talking to yourself. A lot.